One for the welders

[stumpyjag 6]

Hi all.

 

Been doing some welding on my gti with some good success but also from time to time a few issues with penetration. I’ve always put it down to a hobby grade welder but having just run out of wire I noticed I’ve been using 0.6mm. Would changing the tip and wire to 0.8mm help me at all? 

 

Thanks in advance for any advice. 

[petert 586]

No, 0.8mm is too big for car panel work. If your preparation is sound and machine set up correctly, 0.6 is perfect.

 

start with the tip. Make sure it’s protruding 2-3mm past the end of the nozzle.

[stumpyjag 6]

Great, thanks for the advice. 

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

0.6 wire is fine. The welder itself can have a lot to do with it. Try blowing the liner that carries the wire out with compressed air. Or ideally change it for a new one. Old liner can drag on the wire giving less than perfect wire feed, in turn this gives a poor weld as the wire is effectively start/stopping many times a second.

[DamirGTI 342]

.. and practice wire speed adjustment on some scrap metal .

 

Here you can find some tips for MIG welding :

 

https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/

 

D

[stumpyjag 6]

Thanks for the advice really appreciate it. 

[Alan_M 66 1 Cars]

What welder have you got? SIPs are notorious for being inconsistent.

 

Best thing I did was to convert my Hobby Mig to take the big bottles of gas. Those disposable ones cost a few quid and you rattle through them quickly. Depends on how much welding you'll be doing I suppose.

 

 

[Biggles 65]

On 2/6/2019 at 9:36 PM, petert said:

No, 0.8mm is too big for car panel work.

 

On 2/6/2019 at 10:02 PM, Tom Fenton said:

The welder itself can have a lot to do with it.

I've put these two together because I've been welding cars for 30 years and have never got on with 0.6 wire - using Clarke and Sealey MIGs.  Virtually all of this welding has been on late 70s / early 80s French hatchbacks - a lot of which was pretty darned thin metal when it left the factory.  I consider myself to be a fair welder - which might be me being modest as I work for a low volume exhaust manufacturer and I look at the welding done by our coded welders and think I can do better than that back home in the garage...  So I suppose the moral of the story is you need to find the gear that works for you.

[petert 586]

True, I can weld with 0.8mm but most amateurs can't.

 

0.6mm can be a pain in the butt if you're welder can't feed it correctly. The liner needs to be perfect and feed rollers in good condition, otherwise it will cobble.

[Leslie green 110]

Changing the tip for a new one often makes a big difference to how well it welds ,you can't really see its worn but  it will be, also make sure its running on the correct roller groove as there are 2 and you want the thinner one for 0.6 wire. I have usually used 0.6 for car work as it way to easy to burn though with 0.8 on thin panels and most hobby migs are 130 amp or so so there is way more power than you need for most jobs.Id also check your earth clamp as sometimes the wires comes loose where its bolted on or the clamp get rusty so can't make good contact.

[Rippthrough 98]

Honestly it mainly depends on how clean you've got everything and the machine itself, 0.6mm should be better but we've an EWM in the workshop with 1mm wire in and I can weld car bodywork just fine with it. I've spent years welding bodywork with 0.6 and 0.8mm and there's really not that much difference, it depends on what the machine drives best. Get your prep down with spotless panels and play with your technique and settings will change more than the wire does.

Edited February 13, 2019 by Rippthrough